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of her earshot, he continued. “Then you go and bring Bourne with you.”
“I told you. I was still trying to recruit him.”
“Don’t lie to a liar, Moira.” He crossed his arms over his chest. When he spoke again,
every word had weight. “There is a grave concern that your priorities aren’t straight. You
have a job to do, and a vitally important one. The firm can’t afford to have your attention wandering.”
“Are you saying you want to replace me?”
“It’s an option that was discussed,” he acknowledged.
“Bullshit. At this late stage there’s no one who knows the project as well as I do.”
“But then another option was requested: withdrawal from the project.”
Moira was truly shocked. “You wouldn’t.”
Noah kept his gaze on her. “The partners have determined that in this instance it would
be preferable to withdraw than to fail.”
Moira felt her blood rising. “You can’t withdraw, Noah. I’m not going to fail.”
“I’m afraid that’s no longer an option,” he said, “because the decision’s been made. As
of oh seven hundred this morning we’ve officially notified NextGen that we’ve
withdrawn from the project.”
He handed her a packet. “Here is your new assignment. You’re required to leave for
Damascus this afternoon.”
Arkadin and Devra reached the Bosporus Bridge and crossed over into Istanbul just as
the sun was rising. Since coming down from the cruel, snow-swept mountains along
Turkey’s spine they had shed layers of clothes, and now the morning was exceptionally
clear and mild. Pleasure yachts and huge tankers alike plowed the Bosporus on their way
to various destinations. It felt good to roll down the windows. The air, fresh, moist, tangy with salt and minerals, was a distinct relief after the dry hard winter of the hinterlands.
During the night they’d stopped at every gas station, beaten-down motel, or store that
was open-though most were not-in an attempt to find Heinrich, the next courier in Pyotr’s
network.
When it came time for him to spell her, she moved to the passenger’s side, put her
head against the door, and fell into a deep sleep, from which emerged a dream. She was a
whale, swimming in icy black water. No sun pierced the depths where she swam. Below
her was an unfathomable abyss. Ahead of her was a shadowy shape. She didn’t know
why, but it seemed imperative that she follow that shape, catch up with it, identify it. Was it friend or foe? Every so often she filled her head and throat with sound, which she sent
out through the darkness. But she received no reply. There were no other whales around,
so what was she chasing, what was she so desperate to find? There was no one to help
her. She became frightened. The fright grew and grew…
It clung to her as she awoke with a start in the car beside Arkadin. The grayish
predawn light creeping through the landscape rendered every shape unfamiliar and
vaguely threatening.
Twenty-five minutes later they were in the seething, clamorous heart of Istanbul.
“Heinrich likes to spend the time before his flight in Kilyos, the beach community in
the northern suburbs,” Devra said. “Do you know how to get there?”
Arkadin nodded. “I’m familiar with the area.”
They wove their way through Sultanahmet, the core of Old Istanbul, then took the
Galata Bridge, which spa
when Istanbul was known as Constantinople, seat of the Byzantine Empire, Karakцy was
the powerful Genoese trading colony known as Galata. As they reached the center of the
bridge Devra looked west toward Europe, then east across the Bosporus to Ьskьdar and
Asia.
They passed into Karakцy, with its fortified Genoese walls and, rising from it, the
stone Galata tower with its conical top, one of the monuments that, along with the
Topkapi Palace and Blue Mosque, dominated the modern-day city’s skyline.
Kilyos lay along the Black Sea coast twenty-two miles north of Istanbul proper. In the
summer it was a popular beach resort, packed with people swimming, snacking in the
restaurants that lined the beach, shopping for sunglasses and straw hats, sunbathing, or
just dreaming. In winter it possessed a sad, vaguely disreputable air, like a dowager
sinking into senility. Still, on this sun-splashed morning, under a cloudless cerulean sky, there were figures walking up and down the beach: young couples hand in hand; mothers
with young children who ran laughing to the waterline, only to run back, screaming with
terror and delight when the surf piled roughly in. An old man sat on a fold-up stool,
smoking a crooked hand-rolled cigar that gave off a stench like the smokestack of a
ta
Arkadin parked the car and got out, stretching his body after the long drive.
“He’ll recognize me the moment he sees me,” Devra said, staying put. She described
Heinrich in detail. Just before Arkadin headed down to the beach, she added, “He likes
putting his feet in the water, he says it grounds him.”
Down on the beach it was warm enough that some people had taken off their jackets.
One middle-aged man had stripped to the waist and sat with knees drawn up, arms locked
around them, facing up to the sun like a heliotrope. Kids dug in the sand with yellow
plastic Tweety Bird shovels, poured sand into pink plastic Petunia Pig buckets. One pair
of lovers had stopped at the shoreline, embracing. They kissed passionately.
Arkadin walked on. Just behind them a man stood in the surf. His trousers were rolled
up; his shoes, with socks stuffed into them, had been placed on a high point in the sand
not far away. He was staring out at the water, dotted here and there with tankers, tiny as
LEGOs, inching along the blue horizon.
Devra’s description was not only detailed, it was accurate. The man in the surf was
Heinrich.
The Moskva Bank was housed in an enormous, ornate building that would pass for a
palace in any other city but was run-of-the-mill by Moscow standards. It occupied a
corner of a busy thoroughfare a stone’s throw from Red Square. The streets and
sidewalks were packed with both Muscovites and tourists.
It was just before 9 AM. Bourne had been walking around the area for the last twenty
minutes, checking for surveillance. That he hadn’t spotted any didn’t mean the bank
wasn’t being watched. He’d glimpsed a number of police cars cruising the snow-covered
streets, more than usual, perhaps.
As he walked along a street close to the bank, he saw another police cruiser, this one
with its light flashing. Stepping back into a shop doorway, he watched as it sped by.
Halfway down the block it stopped behind a double-parked car. It sat there for a moment,
then the two policemen got out of their cruiser, swaggered over to the vehicle.
Bourne took the opportunity to walk down the crowded sidewalk. People were
wrapped and bundled, swaddled like children. Breath came out of their mouths and noses
in cloud-like bursts as they hurried along with hunched shoulders and bent backs. As
Bourne came abreast of the cruiser, he dipped down and glanced in the window. There he
saw his face staring up at him from a tear sheet that had obviously been distributed to
every cop in Moscow. According to the accompanying text he was wanted for the murder
of an American government official.
Bourne walked quickly in the opposite direction, disappearing around a corner before
the cops had a chance to return to their car.
He phoned Gala, who was parked in Yakov’s battered Zhig three blocks away awaiting
his signal. After his call, she pulled out into traffic, made a right, then another. As they had surmised, it was slow going, the morning traffic sluggish.